- Okay, Boethius. This is all very well. Often, our suffering is irrational, and we need to be argued out of it. You’d feel at home reading textbooks of cognitive-behavioral therapy — yes, often reframing our suffering through reason can help us cope.
- But … come on. When I am in the depths of despair, I don’t want reasoned argument. I admit I’ve never mouldered in prison awaiting execution, but when I’m at my lowest, I certainly don’t think I want Philosophy! Do I really need to be lectured about the fleetingness of worldly pleasures when I’m grieving them?
- What I want isn’t argument but companionship — a friend to sit by me, to listen to my complaints, to take away my loneliness. I want a friendly embrace, music to lift me outside of myself, someone to come down into the prison cell with me —
- And… oh… right.
Maybe Boethius and I want the same thing.
- It turns out that I do want Wisdom. But what I want is for Wisdom to be a person, someone who governed the world from the beginning. I want Wisdom to speak to me, knowing who I am, knowing what I lost and what I’m looking for.
- I want Wisdom to have a body.
- I want Wisdom to gloriously descend and gloriously rise.
- And I want Wisdom to reach into my prison cell, take hold of me, and lift me from my grave.
